


Pre-owned

by Davechicken



Series: Kylux - Fluff & Angst [41]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8326729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Love doesn't go away.





	

It’s hard, walking away from the room. Walking away from a past he almost had, a self he sometimes was. The man strapped down to the chair knew someone else, someone unmasked, someone different.

(The name is forbidden. It is taboo, it is unspoken, and wrong.)

Kylo snaps his way through the rest of the day in the foulest mood possible, even the prospect of finding the _Jedi_ isn’t enough to lift him from his funk.

It’s just… it’s just… the pain of two worlds colliding. Two worlds he’s done his level best to keep apart, but really… how long could he fight the good fight and keep his distance from everyone he’d known _before_? Not indefinitely.

He just didn’t expect it to be his childhood crush.

Kylo remembers how he - how - (ben) \- felt. His first love, and it had been a puppy one. The older boy with the bright eyes and gorgeous hair and the _confidence._  He remembers liking that most of all. The way he was kind, and generous, and how everyone _liked_ him, and (ben)  had envied it, as much as wanted to bask in it. 

Maybe it hadn’t really been love. At the time he’d been sure, but now he doesn’t know - and won’t ever know - because there are some things that are insurmountable in a relationship. 

War is one of them. You just… can’t.

He had been the first, but he wasn’t the last.

There’d been the tutor, the one who came in to the ‘Academy’. Kylo (he can’t, he can’t think the other name, by then he _was_ Kylo, even if he didn’t know it) had lusted after her. He’d jerked it when he couldn’t not, and he’d fantasised about things without ever really knowing how to go about it, or whether it was even possible. 

But the War cut that short. And he’d left, and he’d been alone for some time.

Until.

Until Alek.

Who he _knows_ he loved. Who he **knows** he thought was the ‘One’. At the time. Young, foolish, and full of spunk that wasn’t his. Who he’d gone mad for, and kissed under moonlight, and thought songs were all about, and been heartbroken when it finished.

He’d been sure that was it. He’d had three chances, and he’d screwed it up. 

One day, Alek simply didn’t love him enough to be with him any more. It had broken him in two, and he’d begged and pleaded to know how to fix it… but the man just wanted to go.

So - his core torn to pieces - Kylo had let him. Watched him.

Mourned him, like he was a dead thing.

(He still loves him, even now. Still remembers the good times, and… he thinks he’s glad he had them, even knowing how he cried for days on end and made a mess of himself. Alex taught him a lot, and it wasn’t all bad, and… some things you just had to learn.)

Of course, he never expected to fall for Hux. Why would he? The man was a rule-obsessed lunatic, he loved the sound of his own voice, he had more Daddy Issues than Kylo himself, and…

Just…

Hux is a mess. A very hot, very efficient, very effective and productive and ambitious mess.

Maybe he sees the mess more, now they’re together?

Before, he grated on his nerves like nobody’s business. But in time, their mutual understanding grew. _They_ grew. And Hux became someone Kylo trusted, and someone he - yes - loved. 

It was a different kind of love. No less than he’d had for Alex, or for people Ben had known. Just different. 

Sure. They snipe. Sure, they bitch and leverage and fight.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t love.

That night, he pulls his mask off when he gets back to their rooms. Hux is already there, and he holds his hand up for the brush of their fingers together. A minor ritual, a shorthand for something much deeper-felt. 

“What is it?” Hux asks. “You’ve been on edge since Jakku.”  


“Nothing.”  


Hux’s gaze sniper-bores into him, taking no prisoners. Boom. Boom. Boom.

“I knew him. Before.” Knew. He’d been a nightly wished visitor. He’d been the young man’s emotional and sexual awakening, whether he knew it or not. A circuit that only fed one way, but one that reassured him the voice was right.  


He was no Jedi. Jedi wouldn’t lust, and wouldn’t crave the things he did. Even just the holding of hands, the innocent kisses.

He was not that man, _or_ that boy.

Hux seems to understand, and he pulls Kylo by the fingers, walking up his digits until he can put pressure on his palm. Summoning him, inch by inch, into his lap.

Kylo knows Hux has loved others before him. They rarely discuss it, unless a memory or an act has a sour aftertaste, and the reaction needs explaining.

 _The ex_.

Not because it’s taboo, whatever caused the flinch, but because it’s there. And once the ghost is aired, it loses some of its power over them. They had lives, before. Some parts happier than others.

But it’s okay, because they have each other, now. 

He wants to stay with Hux. (He’d wanted the same with Alek.) He’s not sure if he’s the type to ever fall ‘out’ of love like Alek had, and he really hopes he isn’t. Hux makes him happy. He makes Hux happy. 

If Alek had been in that chair… he’s not sure he could have lasted half as long as he did with Poe. Silly, isn’t it? Except it really isn’t.

(He still loves all of them. Everyone he ever loved, no matter how they hurt him. Even Han. In his own way. Maybe that’s how it feels, loving and not enough: being able to go. Being able to leave home.)

Hux seems less ‘hung up’ over his previous lovers (they’re gone for a reason, Ren), but Kylo is sure he’d falter, if he had to interrogate them. He allows Hux to envelop him, leeching his warmth.

“When we get him back, we’ll get someone else to… speak with him,” Hux offers.  


It’s kind.

Kylo knows it’s silly, but… yeah. Those threads of emotion might fade in colour, but they’re still wrapped around his heart.

Funny.

“Thanks,” he says, and kisses at his jaw. “Can we pretend today didn’t happen?”  


He means their fight.

Hux nods. “I’d like that.”

Kylo squeezes him tight in gratitude. He still feels the odd twinge of envy that other people loved him first, but that’s… that’s life, right? It’s not like there’s a set amount of love, and now he has less because other people got there first.

It’s just that he’s here, now, and they happened before. And if this is meant to be, it will be the last relationship either of them has.

(Which he’d like. So very, very much.)


End file.
